Totally understand your frustration. Here’s some background info that should help clarify the selection process a bit.

All focus group studies have a very specific set of criteria that respondents need to meet before they can qualify.

For example; One focus group may be looking for married women between 30-35 with kids, and an annual household income of $75k+ and they purchase a very specific brand of hand soap. Another focus group might be looking for single men between 20-25 that have traveled by plane in the last 2 months and have eaten at the airport. Some focus group criteria can get super specific!

So even if you meet most, but not all criteria you may still not qualify. It’s kind of like applying for jobs. You may apply for 20 jobs and still not get an interview, let alone a job! Same thing goes for focus groups.

On a positive note; keep in mind there are hundreds of people that are selected to be and participate in a focus group every day. So take courage, it’s just a matter of time.

The demographic criteria varies per focus group, and these are determined by the companies that initiate the focus group (companies like Coca Cola, Apple, Ford, etc.). We don’t have any control over this unfortunately.

Yes, you can participate in focus groups that are out of your state as long as they are marked as “National”. To see the full list of current National focus groups, go here: https://focusgroups.org/national/studies